Far into the forest under the cover of darkness, the earlier conversation Velasteros had with Nieca felt to be a distant memory.
I should be plenty far away…
Velasteros’s mind faded as she prepared to hunt again. She always tried to maintain enough focus not to get caught, but then there were nights like this where her mind felt especially foggy. The scorpion transformed into her true form, leaving her clothes in her ring so they wouldn’t be damaged.
I already feel tired. I need to… I need to focus.
The scorpion tried to hold herself together, but as she could hear the rattle of movement in the distance, the urge to hunt and consume grew. She had this randomly occurring hunger that struck which she needed to satisfy. This wasn’t a factor before acquiring the [Human Shifting] skill, but also wasn’t an issue in the few days after acquisition.
I need to keep… control…
The hunger wasn’t her only problem that made Velasteros worry. A fear she had from the beginning was falling into her instincts and being ruled by them. While in these periods of mental fogginess, she never fully succumbed to her instincts. The fear that she might remain.
Every time, the stress on her mind and body only worsened those fears.
It was unfair. Why couldn’t she have a body and mind that were completely hers?!
Control… Level… focus on levelling up. More points into… [Intelligence]... then everything will be okay.
The fear was a virus that spread with each pulse of anxiety. Every moment, every worry, worsened it, which only circled back around to continue the loop of mental anguish.
The desire. The goal. The hope… that with enough points in [Intelligence], these fears would finally be banished. However, the virus had already begun encroaching on that hope.
What if that hope was proven false? Could she even handle that?
Velasteros didn’t know the answer to that question. Desperately, at every instance, she tried not to think about that possibility. The brief instances when those thoughts had surfaced for a moment, it clenched her heart with a suffocating grip.
Thankfully, the forest had no signs of human life in sight, but it wasn’t devoid of creatures.
Velasteros leapt forward, and her claw clamped the head off a wild hog. She dove to consume and ate a large portion of the hog before moving on to the next target. The hunger wasn’t receding, and there’s so much to consume.
More…
Trees toppled down as the scorpion could barely focus on its rush toward the next prey. She found the family of the hog and massacred them with an attack from each of her natural weapons. The speed at which she increased and the mess followed. Blood dripped down her black shell, but she couldn’t feel it. The only thing that mattered was the next target… and these animals weren’t enough.
Her senses expanded, and if their only purpose in life was to hunt, she was able to lock down the next fulfilling meal.
Two large ferret creatures, not animals, but monsters, were found. The scorpion made its approach, quieter now that it had something more in its stomach.
It found the prey, and the judgment it made upon first glance was that the kill was possible.
The two monsters twitched up as the scorpion got closer, and as they began to move, fearing something was wrong, the scorpion jumped. The pincer grabbed the tail of one and yanked the creature closer. [Crush] applied to shatter the bones and cause pain to enrage the beast, to make it keep fighting.
The second to free its partner jumped around the scorpion and attacked from behind. The scorpion's slow turn couldn’t block the rapid three strikes against its shell. The orange eyes that refused to shine locked onto the target. The strikes caused pain through the shell, and each avoided the sharp crystal.
Squirming in the claw, the ferret flopped around trying to cause damage and chaos to distract the scorpion from its friend.
As the ferret jumped around, prepared for the follow-up, the one in the scorpion’s claw managed to get some momentum to wobble the scorpion. Both creatures' bodies came crashing into the [Barrier], and the scorpion followed up by flinging the ferret like a sack into the other one.
With the ferret knocked back, the scorpion killed the one in its grip by crushing it with both pincers with its skill. The ferret squeaked for its final time before becoming a bloody corpse on the ground.
One ferret died, the scorpion immediately began feeding, but there was another threat. It–she knew that! But the scorpion began eating.
I…
It tried to pull its mind back.
Need… to…
She pulled herself back from eating as a sharp cut came down her back. The ferret’s body glowed with a silver light, its tail looked as sharp as a blade as it cut into her shell.
I won’t… fall apart…
With a scream of emotion, she leapt forward, and the ferret countered with another slash.
To a damn ferret…
[Barrier] emerged again and blocked the strike for a second before it shattered.
Or to myself…
Her pincers tore through the flesh of the large ferret, and she pulled it apart limb from limb. From back, her tail stabbed into one of its allies, injecting it with a lethal dose of venom. The ferret went cold, and Velasteros found herself injured and tired. Without really thinking, she began eating again, tearing into the monster's flesh. The raw meat and blood splattered over the ground, and with every bite and swallow, she tried to regain a sliver of her senses.
Still… I'm so hungry…
Velasteros continued to move, her mind pulsing with pain and hunger eating away at her. She needed to hunt more. Night continued to pass, and more blood was spilled across the forest floor.
With a semblance of sanity, Velasteros shifted back into her human form. Her body ached and groaned in the transformation, but eventually she returned the human form. Blood still covered her body, and she remembered the basic act of removing the cloak she stored within her ring as the cold night chilled her human skin.
It was still nearing instinctual, and Velasteros started to bite her tongue to shock her senses. Velasteros began walking back towards the village, but it was still so far away.
“Valmyst…” The small child’s voice spoke. Despite moving towards the village, Velasteros knew that at the pace she was moving, she was still hours away.
“Nieca…” Velasteros stepped back, and her body almost gave out. She leaned against the tree, and she saw at a glance that the child was still over ten metres away. Her voice was raspy and dry. “Why are you here…?”
“People have been suspicious. You have been very distant and are randomly missing without saying anything.” Nieca answered, stepping closer to Velasteros’s bloody form. She stopped when she noticed an uncomfortable twitch from the latter.
She continued her tale. “It was even suspected that you helped us escape for nefarious purposes, and that you, in actuality, belong to the group that kidnapped us.”
The scorpion turned her head slightly so one eye could see the child. “But… I didn’t even meet you until we crossed paths?”
“Proving the facts tends to be difficult when there is valid concern in the air.” Nieca sighed, “They are worried, even if we both may find said worry to be overbearing.”
Velasteros frowned, and her hand fell onto her eye as she tried to push back a headache. She didn’t realise how much the pain was reflected on her face. “Valmyst, are you okay…” Nieca kept her voice down, not wanting to trigger a bad reaction and worsen Velasteros’s condition.
“I am FINE.” Velasteros pulled on every fibre of her will to stay sane. “I will be fine…”
The scorpion looked down at her human hand. The soft flesh. It was hers. A creation that was made because of her discussions!
Velasteros pulled her hands away from her face and turned to properly face Nieca.
I wonder where this would be in a book…
“You…” Her throat was still sore and raspy, but she continued to speak. “You didn’t answer my original question: why are you here?”
“I do suppose my answer wasn’t good enough.” Nieca broke eye contact, the tinge of disappointment in her cheeks.
“We all have some secrets.” Nieca waved her left leg around, sweeping away the leaves. “Thomas is much stronger than the average boy, and I am a little strange. Nothing wrong with keeping it like that.”
“So… you don’t wish to answer…?”
“I won’t ask anymore of you either, about how, who, or where you are from…” Nieca requested, “Can we agree to that?”
Velasteros thought for a long while, the area fell to silence as Nieca prayed for a positive reply—for every bit of intelligence and weirdness she had, she was still terrified of a negative response.
However, before the scorpion came to answer, a different line emerged, propped up by her curiosity and wonder.
Do I have a magnetic attraction to strange humans?
The number of human interactions Velasteros had was very small. Still, the standouts were Sarah and the children. Everyone else felt like they flowed with their environment, while those three had the environment move around them.
Would they be the main characters of a story?
“Fine… I will take it as you just wanted to make sure I was alive.” Velasteros asked, “Do you plan on going back, letting people know what happened tonight?”
“No… You might not believe it, but I say you really did help us.”
Velasteros’s various emotions raised their weapons, but told them to be quiet. “I don’t trust you.”
Nieca's smile went down, but she looked like she expected those words.
“However, I will trust today.” The scorpion continued watching Nieca's eyes widen in shock. “Just… don’t break it.”
“I promise I won’t.” Nieca walked up to Velasteros and reached her hand. “Let’s go back home.”